Seedlings?

[orchidaddict789]

How are your experiences with growing phal seedlings?

I bought some babies of a never-bloomed-before cross, and I'm hoping to see blooms soon. (Define "soon"--1 year, perhaps?) The biggest is 4 inches leaf span, the smallest is only 2 inches.

One thing I discovered is that growing them in bark in clay pots is a bad idea. It dries out too quickly.

Feel free to tell about your seedlings!

[Kev]

I'm not into phals anymore, but did keep one seedling someone gave me and couple of years ago. I agree, bark ain't the best thing for them when they are small. I put them in sphag and once they looked more like teenagers, I moved them to bark. The one I kept is now spiking, so it will be fun to see it bloom for the first time. It only has a leafspan of maybe 5 inches, but I think it's a mini.


These things grow quite fast.


Kev

[janet_a]

i kill 'em. i've got one cherry canary cross that is still in the 2 leaf stage three--wait, no, four--years after i bought it. it's in a bag.

i have another one that actually didn't croak, and it's near blooming size, but i've been treating it for rot. dunno if it'll make it.

am going to stay away from 'em now on. it's just too dry in my house; agreed about the sphag. they didn't do well at all in bark; the only ones that survived did so after i put them in sphag.

[Gin]

I have bought several flasks . When ready to remove them from flask they went into , shallow community pots actually Tupper ware containers with extra holes burned into them with a sodering iron smaller plants together and larger together .
The Spag . is layered with pieces of styrofoam , watered with rain or Ro. water , Fert. half strength . Sprayed with Physan once a week until they are larger , very few losses , they were in the house . Shallow , Fast dry, is good Gin

[jerrymeola]

In general a four inch seedling can be flowered in one year.

Normal blooming season for Phals is winter. You may not realise it since they are available all year. Commercial growers heat their greenhouses during the winter and cool them later when they want to induce flowering. Phals like 45-55 degree night temperatures with 75 degree days in order to set buds.

This is not practical for home growing but I have my young phals in a tropical fish house (36,000 gallons of open tanks of water). The growth rate in the fish house is twice that of the greenhouse even though the greehouse was watered and fertilized more often while I was busy and ignoring the fish house.

The phals apparently absord water into there leaves. 4 inch seedling went to 6-7 inch spreads in 4 months while those in the fish house went to 10-12 inch spreads.

[Tommy]

I Bought three Phal seedlings last Sept. bare root i potted them up in 3 inch pots and two of them are now in spike. is this unsuall. wanted to upload a photo but had some problems with photobucket. they are called Phalaenopsis Kaleidoscope .
Tommy